SARAH BRACKING unpicks the liberal agenda behind Live8 and the G8 summit. The majority of the people attending Live8, and the demonstrations surrounding the G8, wanted no more nor less than to reduce poverty. But helping poor people in other countries raises problems, particularly when the language of benevolence doesn’t explain the structural issues...
Articles
Unite against terror
The following statement was published on the internet after the bombings in London on 7 July 2005 Terrorist attacks against Londoners on 7 July killed at least 54 people. The suicide bombers who struck in Netanya, Israel, on 12 July ended five lives, including two 16 year old girls. And on 13 July, in...
A challenge remaining
Judging by the Compass conference in June, the left has yet to develop a coherent political strategy, says WILL BROWN Lenin is not a figure one immediately associates with the soft left yet there he was on a giant screen at the front of a packed conference hall proclaiming ‘The victory of ideas needs...
Uniform ruling
BEN TURLEY reports on the implications of a House of Lords’ ruling in the school uniform court case In my article, ‘Beggars Belief’, in the last edition of Democratic Socialist, I reported on the Court of Appeal case of Begum v Denbridge High School. The court decided that the school had infringed the right...
The end of Fukuyama
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS explains why the latest pronouncements from Francis Fukuyama miss the mark I have a feeling that it must have been a disappointing week for Francis Fukuyama, whose essay ‘After Neoconservatism’ (adapted from his upcoming book America at the Crossroads) was awarded seven pages in the 19 February 2006 New York Times Magazine. The...
A revolution in contraflow
IVAN BRISCOE listens to the voices of Venezuela’s unemployed, its mobilised, its empowered and its disillusioned to portray the hopes and paradoxes of Hugo Chávez’s ‘Bolivarian revolution’ He has lived on his homestead for only a year since staging a ‘sort of invasion’, but Jovito González is already enjoying the fruits of the Caribbean....
A million on the march
GARY KENT reports on a nine day fact-finding trip to meet trade unionists in Iraq It rarely makes the news here but a million trade unionists are on the march in Iraq. A new network of non-sectarian union federations, professional associations and civil society groups has emerged in Iraq, having been brutally repressed by...
Debating democracy
WILL BROWN examines two welcome contributions to debates on democratic renewal and progressive social change The need to extend democratic practices within society, beyond the confines of the parliamentary system, has been widely recognised on the political left for some time. However, in a context of rising political apathy and a perceived ‘crisis’ of...
Picking at the pensions pickle
JONATHAN TIMBERS appreciates a useful contribution to the left’s developing approach to the pensions debate Anyone who believes that we can continue to exist as we do now with our current pension system is living in a dream world. In 2002, there were 3.35 working people for every person of pensionable age. By 2050...
A more generous attitude of mind
The education bill is a wasted opportunity, say its critics. MATTHEW BROWN looks at a comprehensive alternative It ought to be the thing that unites us. Comprehensive education seems such a straight-forwardly progressive idea that you’d think it’d be the one area of policy the left could agree on. The notion that all children...
Stepping stone or scam?
ANDY HANSFORD wonders whether foundation hospitals will be a fig leaf for privatisation of the NHS. The Tories tried to reform the National Health Service by setting up an ‘internal market’. The result was a failure, with a massive increase in accountants to count debits and credits in a whole new layer of contracts....
The case against social enterprise
The headlong rush towards social enterprise could undermine any prospects of a genuine social economy, says STEVE SCHOFIELD Social enterprise is very much the flavour of the month, or even, possibly, the next big thing. Its proponents put forward an ambitious agenda of creating jobs, providing training and developing local services in areas of...